Santa Cruz: Silver Party Hammer Face Porno

-This is a guest post by Santa Cruz organizer and all-around legend, Dirty Airy-
A coup was staged this year in the Santa Cruz Regional Qualifier, wherein the unarmed forces of our city’s air-corps took control from both reigning co-champions, and will bring new blood to San Francisco on July 12th.

Dirty Airy began the night by offering any female, with the balls to sign up and play, a free drink and a t-shirt. In a city blessed with the best female studies department this side of Eden, there were no takers. Still, the open invitation would be revisited.

After a successful air-guitar virgin joke, the evening’s host picked a plant volunteer from the crowd, and spent six minutes and twenty two seconds playing air guitar, introducing judges, helping burlesque dancers onto the stage, getting bitch slapped by said dancers, dropping to his knees, and being forced to tap out to a nice lady giving him an Iron Sheik with his head dangling off the stage, which smelled of abortion, and vomit.

First up was the reigning champion Sir Lord Snakebite (Hiram Coffee), who the USAG was blessed to play with whilst entertaining the fine people of Survey Monkey at their company Christmas party last year. Snake Bite, who has the best sweeping head bang in the universe, was cast down by our technical judge Danny Buzzard, who by far, was the hardest to impress for the duration of the evening.

* This brings up an important point. Santa Cruz has the best judging in the entire Air Guitar circuit. Our judging criteria is broken down into the elements on which air guitar is judged: Technical Merit, Crowd Response, and Airness, and each judge is charged with judging their respective single category. Because of this, the crowd never gets to fully decide the winner. We have all seen a crowd response run away with a judges mind for a performer who hit two notes in an entire track. To the seasoned air-guitarist, this is maddening. On the other hand, all too often a proficient technical master has been low balled by all three judges due to their lack of crowd response, or airness. Thanks to the format of Santa Cruz judging, strengths are applauded, and scored appropriately, while deficiencies are addressed with the sincere hope that the performer take their critique to heart, and wring vinegar out of the douche bags judging them….because that’s just how it feels sometimes.*

Needless to say, Snakebite received a 0.9 differential between his crowd response and technical scores, and with a 6 for Airness, was dethroned.

Seasoned veteran Tiger Claw (Dan LaFever) was in rare form as he looked at least 10 steps from deaths door while performing Judas Priest. Scoring even scores across the board, he would prove to be the first entrant into round 2.

Crowd favorite Party Time (Casey Pennuto) flirted with a tribute to the Ultimate Warrior (R.I.P.) and launched into round 2. Dirty Airy, never one to miss a chance to applaud a professional wrestling reference, offered a free shirt to the first person to run up and identify the entrance music used in Party Time’s track. Thank you, guy who knew what was up. Thank you.

Staple of the West coast Singar the Goat Demon (Forrest Stone) brought the second most elaborate intro to the competition, but despite air judge Balla Fire’s correct perception that what she saw on stage was probably what she would see at a 7-11 from Singar, his creepy and weird style was described as “creepy and weird”by judge White Chocolate, and judge Buzzard sunk his hopes for round 2 with a dismal 4.8 on the technical scale.

After the palette cleanser of Singar came the rookie Jon Face (Jon Crisara). That’s when shit got real. In the middle of his track featuring The Faceless, Mr. Face blindfolded himself, threw his guitar in the air, and caught it into a face melting lead. After performing, Jon Face told Dirty that he couldn’t even hear the track being played due to the screaming from the crowd, but thanks to muscle memory, he completed the track (blindfolded), and parleyed his high scores into round 2. This writer still cannot believe that Jon was able to catch his guitar, while blindfolded, without knocking himself out.

Then came The Silver Hammer, and shit got really-real. Whilst covered in goat blood, chains, and a loin cloth (looking quite like Nordic 2.0, or Tyrannicus on crack), the long time talker, first time walker rookie Silver Hammer (Maxwell Priest-Radofski) scored not one, not two, but three 6’s, thus ensuring his spot in the top of round 2.

Number 3 in the U.S., Seth Leibowitz (Justin Hypes) was up next, but to the dismay of the host, and long time co-news anchor of Seth, judge Buzzard gave the bone, and his 5.9 and 5.7 scores from the airness and technical judges were offset by a solid 5.0, and Leibowitz once again retired from competition. (Yeah Right).

Blaze Badass (Barry Rawlins), in his usual Lebowski attire, took to the stage and proceeded to leave everyone slack jawed with a 6, 6, 5.9, and like a bukake scene in a dark room; nobody saw him cumming.

The award for “Best campaign”went to Sweetness (Kyle Privette). The award for “Costume best matching the song performed”went to Sweetness. The award for “Longest held single waggling note of the night”went to Sweetness. The scores however, did not go to Sweetness as again, it was the technical critique of Judge Buzzard who handed out the 4.5 for a denial into round 2.

The Award for best name of the competition went to newcomer Blood Sausage (John McFadden). The award for “only guy to have a transvestite roadie on stage” went to Blood Sausage. The award for “Shamelessly shaking pelvis in the face of the judges” went to Blood Sausage. The award for “Only guy to tear the sleeves off his shirt before playing” went to Blood Sausage. Mid-level scoring waylaying his trip to round 2 went to Blood Sausage, but on a brighter note, while writing this article, Blood Sausage emailed me to say, “I’m already thinking about what to play next year.” And thus, the award for “Taking his first step into a much larger world” goes to Blood Sausage.

Rounding out the registered competitors was last year’s runner up to the championship, and semi-final competitor (under a different name) Dark Matter (Derek Tobias). This performance constituted the most elaborate introduction of the night as all the lights in the venue went out, revealing a pair of glowing eyes, piercing the souls of those in attendance. In true Windhammer fashion, Dark Matter never broke character, or his piercing gaze to the judging booth, even as they scored him 5.4, 5.6 and 4.8 from judge Buzzard who exclaimed after Dark Matter left the stage, “I think I got it, you’re an emo teenager right?”. Remind me to ask Judge Buzzard what it feels like to be eye hate-fucked later.

While the competition had been raging, two walk-ons had appeared. The first competitor White Tiger (Kris Kaufeldt), was disqualified after bringing a lady on stage to hold his legs while he did a head stand and played air guitar upside-down. For the sake of scoring the performance, (which was not heard once by the competitor before hitting the stage) White Tiger received a 5, 4.8, and 2.9. One guess as to who handed out the 2.9. Interesting post script. White Tiger gave Dirty his business card at halftime:

Words do not do this business card justice. Please go check him out. Now.

And at last, we had a female. Tila Yovavich (real name never discovered) played the classic Beastie Boys cut of Sabotage, and damm near made the second round with a 5.8, 5.9 and a 5. “Bring your ‘A’game people. We are not fucking around here!”was once again heard coming from the mouth of judge Buzzard. This was followed promptly by the host Dirty Airy commanding the crowd to “Boo this man”, which they were only too happy to do….again.

The crowd was dispersed to suck some much needed fresh air, and and when they returned, Sin Sisters Burlesque cut the fog machine off to produce a mist of sex that saw:

A nun perform fellatio on a cross, the biggest group of boners grown to blues music, and the one time assailant of Dirty Airy put our humble Farmers’Market to shame. Sin Sisters Burlesque perform at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz the second Saturday of every month. Needles to say, if you are a fan of air guitar, you need to attend a performance of these ladies on 7/12, 8/9, 9/13, 10/11……the second Saturday of Every month. Get it?

Round 2 saw one of the most difficult edits ever conceived by a mortal as Damage Inc. did its job, and refined 3 champions fit for the semi-finals in San Francisco on July 12th. Tiger Claw, somehow lacking carnal knowledge of the track fell short, as did Blaze Badass, though it should be noted that Blaze performed the most difficult maneuver in air guitar: missing the wah-wah pedal. This feat WOULD have gone unnoticed were it not for the trained eyes of Judge Buzzard, who always has the future of air guitar in mind, and dropped Blaze out of the top 3, leaving Jon Face, Party Time, and The Silver Hammer as the Santa Cruz representatives in S.F.

Icarus (Rich Harris) pressed the spacebar one last time, and Freebird commenced. Dirty Airy gave rides to Jon Face and his favorite passenger Seth Leibowitz. Performers sang their hearts out. Dogs and Cats were granted marriage rights. The Pop-radio station party being held on the main stage of the venue turned green with envy. Competitors cashed in on their newly minted sex-symbol status. Strange hoofed children were conceived. Cold Steel Renegade saw what he would be up against and if Airness is like porno, Santa Cruz was the Bang Bus.

UPDATE! You can now watch videos of competitors here! All video courtesy Dark Matter (Derek Tobias).